Cutting assemblies of a chainsaw as well as the associated saw chains are subject to high mechanical stress during operation. Wear arises, in particular, resulting from friction between individual movable parts.
Such a cutting assembly fundamentally includes a guide bar along whose outer peripheral edge a guide groove is formed in which a saw chain of individual, pivotally connected chain links travels. The saw chain has individual drive links which are guided in the guide groove with their respective drive bases. When the saw chain is traveling, frictional forces occur, in particular, between the side walls of the stationary guide groove and the side surfaces of the drive bases moved relative thereto.
For the lubrication of the existing friction pairings, a plurality of lubrication arrangements is known in which a lubricant, for example, in the form of lubricating oil, is introduced in the guide groove and received by the drive links there. With smooth and flat configurations of the sliding surfaces, it may be that the lubricating oil film formed thereon is removed locally, thus resulting in a local dry friction with high wear.
To avoid the aforementioned lubricant tear off and the related dry friction, various measures are known which, for example, include a continuous lubricant supply opening arranged in the drive base as well as lubricant channels arranged in the side surfaces of the drive base. Such an arrangement is, for example, known from United States patent application publication 2003/0051351, whereby either additionally or alternatively thereto the sliding surfaces of the drive bases can be provided with a surface structuring. The known surface structuring can, for example, include lubricant pockets formed in the side surfaces, which are open only to the side wall of the guide groove and are otherwise closed, that is, have no connection to the lubricant supply opening or the lubricant channel. It has been shown that in broad terms such surface structuring does not ensure the desired effect in terms of forming a lubricant film reliably protected against removal or tear off.